738 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
with a brown tinge in the axis-line. When mature, it is woody 
and solid ; sinuous and nodose near the stem, sending down into 
the soil many thick fibrillae. Sometimes the root is 2ft. long. 
Leaves entire, alternate, slightly drooping, glabrous, undulate or 
wavy, elliptic, ovate, lanceolate or oblong-rotund ; ribs promi- 
nent on the ventral surface ; margin of tender leaves distinctly 
red all round. Petioles very short, channelled, sometimes am- 
plexicaul ; sometimes absent ; margins red. Stipules absent. 
Flowers odourless, in terminal or axillary spikes (racemes) l-2ft. 
long. Rachis of the spike glabrous. Bracts 2, superior, lateral, 
3, says Rheede, glabrous, foliaceous. Rheede’s descripion seems 
to me to be more accurate (K. R. Kirtikar) ; the bracteoles are 
persistent. Calyx sessile, inferior, gamosepalous, tubular, herb- 
aceous, covered with stalked, sticky scarlet glands throughout 
its length, 5-10-ribbed ; upper half bright-red, often deep rose- 
coloured, lower half brown-red, with just a shade of green near 
the insertion of the bracteole. If the pedicel is at all present, it 
is very short, oblong and deeply imbedded in the bracteoles. Co- 
rolla bright-red, often deep rose-coloured, hypercratiform, hypo- 
gynous tube long, slender, slightly angular, lobes 5 „ obovate or 
obcordate, usually the latter ; stamens 5, opposite the petals, free, 
very flue, and delicate, pale-rose-coloured, partly whitish, slightly 
arising above the “ throat ” of the Corolla-tube and looking pur- 
plish. Filaments filiform, linear, dilated at base and inserted 
at the base of the petals into the tops of 5 nectrial scales (Roxb.). ; 
Anthers oblong, introse ; anther-cells separated at base, opening 
by longitudinal slits. Pollen ovate. Ovary free, sessile, supe- 
rior, 5-angular above, or 5-gibbous, as Boisseir terms it ; narrowed 
at apex. Style single, slender, whitish^ with 5 small segments 
quite indiscernible and alternating with the stamens. Base of style 
hairy. The union of the segments is a diagnostic character of 
this plant. Stigmas 5, capillary, furnished on their inner sur- 
face with several lines of glands. Ovule 1. Fruit a membran- 
ous capsule, circumci8S. Blume says the Dehiscence is valvate, 
others say that the Dehiscince is subvalvate. Seed cylindric or 
oblong, rotund, with 5 longitudinal striae. 
“ Altogether, resembling P. Zeylanica and perhaps only a 
cultivated variety of it ” (C. B. Clarke). 
